The Lake of the Dead
by Grac3
Summary: Dagonet slips below the surface of the lake, but someone is there to greet him under the water.


**A.N.:** So this is an idea that I've had for a while, but I didn't really know how I was going to write it. I decided on a kind of poetry mix-up (and I have written all of the poetry in this fic), just because I felt that it would fit better.

**Disclaimer: Don't own King Arthur.**

* * *

_As the voices crying begin to dim,  
the cold sinks in; he cannot swim.  
It breaks his heart to see him like this,  
but his anguish and strife  
is cost for his life._

"Dag! Dag!"

Dagonet watches as Bors clings helplessly on to the hope that he might survive this. They both know that's impossible, but Bors dares to hope otherwise, right up until the moment that the healer slips below the ice.

_He hurts, he_ hurts_, as he floats among the dead.  
Although all he sees is red,  
he is happy in the knowledge  
that he saved his friends from harm.  
But then he feels a hand upon his arm._

With his muscles so stiff, frozen in place by the cold, Dagonet has no choice but to turn in the direction that the hand is pulling him. Whoever it is appears to be unaffected by the bracing temperature of the water; if anything, the fingers clasped around his muscles feel warm.

Dagonet is sure that he is hallucinating.

_The mysterious figure pulls him away  
towards a cave, where he is sure that they stay.  
He is transfixed, unbelieving  
as he is silently led  
through the sea, the pond, the Lake of the Dead._

The cave is significantly warmer than the water, and Dagonet notices a fire burning in the middle of the floor. He wonders how firewood could have been brought through the water be dry enough to set light to. He wonders why the floor is not the least bit damp and why there seems to be a wall of water at the entrance to the cave, and why there is an anvil in the corner.

His boots clomp loudly against the stone as he makes his way to the fire. The flames seem to flow through the air like water, and they are no warmer the closer he gets to them.

"What is this place?" he asks the figure, turning to face them for the first time.

_Her dress was as white as that of a bride,  
and her long black hair fell down to her sides.  
She was beautiful,  
though her skin was tinged with green  
and she was unlike anything he had ever seen._

"This is my home," the woman explained, walking nearer to the fire. She held up her hands to it as though it was warming her skin and smiled contentedly.

"How?" Dagonet breathed, looking around the cave. He couldn't imagine how anyone would be able to survive in here.

"I get by."

Dagonet turned back to the woman to see her retrieve an unfinished sword from the shadows and stick the blade into the fire. The metal became red hot.

"There is no heat in that fire," he commented, watching as she took it over to the anvil and began to beat it into shape.

_The blade, as grey as clouds of storm,  
before his eyes, began to take its form.  
It was a sword that he had seen before,  
in the hand of Arthur:  
the one, the only, Excalibur._

"There is heat in the fire," the woman explained. "It just does not feel hot to you."

"How is that possible?" Dagonet whispered, staring at the fire in wonder, though he had an awful feeling that he already knew the answer.

"Because, dear Dagonet, you are not alive. You perished in the freezing water outside." The woman lifted the completed sword, admiring her handiwork.

"That sword is Excalibur," Dagonet noted. "That is Arthur's sword."

"Yes," the woman agreed. "But he will need another, and I am the only one who can supply him."

The woman walked passed Dagonet and stuck the sword in the wall of water. It hissed and steamed, the red of the metal dimming slightly as it cooled. She placed the weapon against the wall of the cave.

"Arthur got his sword from his father," Dagonet said.

"Yes," the woman nodded, turning to him and smirking. "But who do you think _he_ got it from?"

_She sat down in the warmth, in the light, of the fire.  
Dagonet never thought to think her a liar.  
The flames illuminated the green of her skin;  
from what Dagonet could suddenly see,  
he became aware of her identity._

Dagonet took a seat on the other side of the fire, staring into its depths as they flickered ominously. "Why did you bring me here?" he asked.

"Because you are dead."

"I have nothing to offer you."

She chuckled at this. "It is not what _you_ can offer _me_. It is what _I_ can do for _you_."

_They lost at Baden Hill. He watched in disbelief  
from the side lines, consumed by unimaginable grief.  
They lost at Baden Hill:  
For what is the worth of enemy bones  
when you have lost two of your own?_

_He watched from the side lines as two of them died.  
He watched as the others stood round and cried.  
He did not shed a tear for them,  
for she would come to their rescue:  
the beautiful, the majestic – the Lady Nimue._


End file.
